Onset is Alive with Spiritual History

 Excerpts from a Boston Glob article by William A. Davis. Photo by David Evans from Onset, Ma. Facebook group

One of the best-preserved Victorian beach resorts in the country, Onset long has been known as "The Gateway to Cape Cod." Word is getting around, however, that the village, which has a unique history and one of the state's finest ocean beaches, is also a great destination in its own right.

This charming destination is scenic, walkable, has soft sand beaches and calm, warm waters. More people are deciding to take their beach vacation in Onset instead of fighting the Cape Cod traffic.

Part of the town of Wareham, Onset (named for a local Indian chief) sits beside a beach-rimmed bay at the head of Buzzards Bay. It has a small year-round population that more than doubles in the summer.

Most villages claim to have spirit, but in Onset's case, spiritualists also helped make it what it is today. The core of the village is a 150-acre tract acquired in 1877 by the Onset Bay Grove Association, a group of Boston businessmen who wanted to create a spiritualist summer resort. In the years after the Civil War, when millions of Americans were still mourning fallen soldiers, interest in spiritualism -- the belief that it is possible to communicate with the dead -- was widespread.

The association laid out a well-planned community along the bay. A large amount of open space was set aside for parks and picnic groves, and 700 house lots were available. At first, people camped on their lots, but soon mansard-roofed hotels and turreted mansions were built looking out on the bay, and gingerbread cottages replaced canvas tents. Most are still standing. Visitors arrived by railroad and paddle-wheel steamer, and spiritualist camp meetings attracted crowds in the thousands to the village's waterside parks. By the late 1890s, interest in spiritualism had waned. Looking for a new source of revenue, the association began to subdivide and fence off previously public parks and sections of beach. This was vigorously opposed by the Onset Protective League, which is still an active property owners' association.

In 1915, after a long legal battle, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled in favor of the league and decreed that "use and enjoyment" of Onset's beaches and parks belonged to the public and ordered the association to remove any structures it had erected.

In summer, band concerts are held, and movies screened under the stars in the bayside parks, still protected by the 1915 decree. A beloved Onset summer custom, dating from its 19th-century heyday, is Illumination Night, when more than 1,200 flares are placed at intervals on the beach all around the harbor and are lit simultaneously.

Despite all the new things happening, Onset hasn't entirely forgotten its origins. There is still a spiritualist church here, and the distinctive octagonal wooden chapel of the Onset Wigwam Spiritualist Camp, built in 1894, is a village landmark.